Historical Evolution of Human Resource Information System (HRIS): An Interface between HR and Computer Technology

Human resources (HR) are the key success factor of any organization operating in the 21 st century. From the beginning till today, they have been playing vital role to boost up organizations' competitive capabilities for enjoying competitive advantage and superior profitability over rivals. As today's business environment is more vulnerable due to intense market competition and higher employee empowerment. Organizations have been using information technology for achieving efficiency in human resource management. Thus, it is need for HR professionals to get a clear picture about the historical development of HRM and the increasing role of information technology there in. Consequently, the study tried to analyze critically about evolving human resource information system (HRIS) as a comparatively new technology in HRM. To gratify the stated need, this study analyzed the historical data collected from different published and unpublished sources. The study found that HRIS emerged in the low-cost era (1980-90) and the roles of HR professionals transformed from traditional administrative to more strategic roles during the high-tech era (from 1990).